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Motivated Entitativity: Applying Balance Theory to Group Perception

Marilynn B. Brewer

The Ohio State University

The focus of the current work is on the motivated aspects of entitativity using the perspective gained from theories of cognitive consistency. The central hypothesis is that balance principles will motivate perceivers to partition the social world in such a way as to achieve a state of consistency between social units and attributed acts. Three studies are reported: one employing content analytic methods to investigate motivated perceptions of the US Supreme Court in the context of the 2000 presidential election, and two laboratory experiments. Results generally supported the prediction that agreement with a court's decision would lead to perceiving the court as an entitative unit, whereas disagreement would lead to ‘de-entifying' the court by differentiating individual members or subgroups. Alternative explanations and implications of these findings for motivated cognition are discussed.

Key Words: balance theory • entitativity • motivation

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